For several years, the City has been expanding its water and sewer infrastructure within the Southwest Quadrant, defined generally as the area west of Interstate 95 and south of Interstate 16. This area includes the New Hampstead development, other proposed residential and commercial developments, and SEDA’s new Savannah Manufacturing Center. The City invests water and sewer funds in this expansion, and recovers the cost by charging “additional connection fees” at the time new customers tap into the system. This facilitates the expansion, without impacting the rates of existing customers of the system. The fees are calculated based on the number of “equivalent residential units” (“ERUs”) of water and sewer demand that will be utilized by each new customer. A single-family home is treated as one ERU.

A master plan of the infrastructure required to support the projected growth has been generated along with the estimated capital costs for that infrastructure. Although it is intended to be phased in as service demands grow, it is necessary to modify the Revenue Ordinance now to include recovery of the associated capital costs as development occurs. Beginning recovery of capital costs immediately will 1) assist in providing the needed capital funding for the necessary improvements and 2) equitably apply the cost of the capital improvements across all proposed development units throughout the Southwest Quadrant. It should be noted that these Capital Cost Recovery fees are paid only by new and expanded development as such development occurs and makes use of the infrastructure funded by the City.

Summary of Fee Modifications:

Existing fees for “New Hampstead/Grainger area”, “Southwest Quadrant – Outside City Limits”, and “Southwest Quadrant – Inside City Limits” were established and placed in the Revenue Ordinance for the purposes of recovering capital costs already expended by the City within a portion of the Southwest Quadrant. 

These existing individual fees are being eliminated and instead combined with proposed future expenditures for providing water and sewer service throughout the greater Southwest Quadrant area. This combination provides for two new fees designated as “Southwest Quadrant – Water & Sewer” and “Travis Field Treatment Plant”. All new development within the Southwest Quadrant will share in the cost of all base infrastructure installed to provide water and sewer service throughout the Southwest Quadrant area.

The revised fees for all of the Southwest Quadrant are proposed to be $1,300 for water, $900 for sewer, and $2,600 for the necessary improvements to the Travis Field Treatment Plant, for a total “additional connection fee” of $4,800. This represents a $1,300/ERU increase over existing "additional connection fees." 

The changes will only affect new users, in new developments that do not have existing and unexpired water and sewer agreements.

Approval